On the 19th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the niece of the mastermind, Osama Bin Laden, has written a public statement.
“For the past nineteen years, not a day has gone by since this horrible, tragic day that I haven’t thought of you, America, and grieved privately with you for all the innocent lives lost,” Noor Bin Laden (who goes by Bin Ladin) wrote on her Twitter account.
“This is in part due to this inexplicable turn of fate that links me to these atrocious attacks, but more importantly because of my love for your country.”
She added that her “values and feelings” are “diametrically opposed to the name that I bear.”
In addition to honoring the lives lost, the Swiss citizen also praised first responders, those who died later from complications resulting from the attack and the survivors who lost loved ones.
Bin Ladin is the daughter of Carmen Dufour, a Swiss author, and Yeslam bin Ladin, an older half-brother of Osama. Her parents divorced in 1988. She and her two sisters were raised in Switzerland.
She was 14 years old on Sept. 11, 2001.
“I was so devastated,” she told the New York Post. “I had been going to the States with my mom several times a year from the age of 3 onwards. I considered the U.S. my second home.”
Bin Ladin, who had kept a low profile, gained notoriety on Sept. 6 when she published a letter supporting U.S. President Donald Trump.